Gay Love Triangle Leads to Vicious Stabbing in Australia

A Qatar man pleaded not guilty to charges that claim he stabbed a Texas man 14 times who was in a 17-year relationship with his boyfriend, Yahoo’s the West reports.

Mohammad Ahmed Almansouri, 39, says he didn’t murder 48-year-old Kenneth Horack on August 4, 2011. Both Almansouri and Horack were in a relationship with William Ben Campbell.

Campbell lived in Texas with Horack but moved to Qatar, one of the Arab oil emirates, this one bordered only by water and Saudi Arabia, for work in August 2007. He met Almansouri on a website two years later. Campbell says both men knew about each other. Horack, who continued to live in Texas, said he was sad when he found out about his partner’s relationship with Almansouri. Nevertheless, when Campbell returned to Texas in April 2011, he brought his new companion with him.

"Kenny said ’When you’re at home you sleep with me,’" Campbell related.

In June 2011, Campbell moved to Perth, Australia, for work and Almansouri set up house for him, according to State Prosecutor Laura Christian. She told jurors that Campbell and the defendant were fighting over the victim’s sleeping arrangements and that the three men living together was a "disaster waiting to happen."

The night Horack was murdered Campbell was having dinner with coworkers and received a phone call from Almansouri. When he answered, Almansouri was allegedly crying and said, "I killed Kenny" and "Why did this picture have to go up?"

The prosecutor claims that Almansouri was overcome by jealous rage after Horack, who had been in a relationship with Campbell for 17 years, put up a picture of himself with Campbell in the new home. Christian said that Almansouri threatened Horack with a knife to scare him off and told him to take the photograph down.

Almansouri told police that the victim was rude to him and that he was "just a houseboy." One of the photos of Horack and Campbell was found destroyed.

Christian added that police found Horack slumped over an ottoman with 14 stab wounds to his head, neck, chest, arms, legs, shoulder and buttock. She said it was not a pre-meditated attack but Almansouri’s "pent up jealousy and anger boiled over."

Almansouri was supposed to go back home to Qatar when Horack came to visit Campbell but he went missing for a few days in July. Campbell sent out a barrage of text messages asking Almansouri to come back because he was worried and felt like "dying," the Australian points out.

But defense lawyer Laurie Levy said the case did not involve jealousy and that Horack started the altercation.

"He said there were two struggles - one in the hallway after Mr. Horack allegedly followed the accused to the back bedroom and then in the lounge room - and during the confrontation Mr. Horack had been on top of Mr. Almansouri," the West article reads.

The Australian notes that Campbell broke down in tears several during the trial as he gave evidence of the death of Horack.

The trial is still under way.

In a similar case, a love triangle lead to a murder-suicide in New York earlier this year. As reported here. According to police Jason Lopez, 22, shot and killed Tory Curtis, 23, before taking his own life in Brooklyn. Media reported that Lopez found Curtis, his alleged boyfriend, with another man, who apparently hid in a closet while Lopez shot Curtis.

The 22nd annual Triangle Awards, honoring the best lesbian and gay fiction, nonfiction, and poetry published in 2009, will be presented on April 29 in New York City. The Publishing Triangle , an association of lesbians and gay men in publishing, began honoring a gay or lesbian writer for his or her body of work a few months after the organization was founded in 1989, and has now partnered with the Ferro-Grumley Literary Awards to present awards each spring.